


House of Satonaka

by Samuraiter



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, Gen, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 19:50:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samuraiter/pseuds/Samuraiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the first paragraph: "A local reporter had been killed, and her corpse, empty of blood, had been suspended from a high place ... as a challenge to not only her, but to her family name, for the house of Satonaka had been hunting the Undead since before the fall of the shogunate."</p>
            </blockquote>





	House of Satonaka

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkSeraphim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkSeraphim/gifts).



> This feels like a pilot episode for a TV show, if you ask me, but it is strangely easy to fit elements of the _Persona 4_ universe into this particular mold.

Inaba – 2011. The incident that Chie had been dreading in her heart for years had come to pass. A local reporter had been killed, and her corpse, empty of blood, had been suspended from a high place ... as a challenge to not only her, but to her family name, for the house of Satonaka had been hunting the Undead since before the fall of the shogunate. Unfortunately, though she had been training for as long as she had been able to pick up the two-headed polearm of Tomoe, her supposed ancestor, she had yet to _see_ one of the enemy, let alone behead it and purify its remains.

She had her suspicions about the identity of the monster that had come to Inaba ... or, rather, had always been there. Despite all of the myths that had been spread about the Undead, they had the ability to blend into the human population, and they had nothing to fear from sunlight, provided that they created charms to protect themselves from it – a simple feat of black magic, but the fact that they always had to have the charms on their bodies during the day provided clues to hunters. And Saki Konishi had been sporting the same bracelet for as long as Chie had been aware of her existence.

On top of that, Saki had been spending more and more time attempting to catch the attention of Yōsuke Hanamura – acquaintance to Chie, and Saki _had_ to be aware of that. Rumors started circulating of the Konishi family keeping their eldest daughter at their liquor store after hours, rumors that attracted the concern of Yōsuke ... and, by extension, Chie. So the Undead intended to force her into a confrontation that she might not be prepared to handle. Fair enough. Come midnight, she had a duty to her family, and to the people of Inaba.

Rescuing Yōsuke had a price. If he realized the truth about her family, that made him a target, and she had to take him into her protection, but, as good fortune had it, the message she had sent up the pipeline to her handlers at the Council in Tokyo had resulted in back-up: Yū Narukami, one of their most promising trainees, a prodigy capable of using any of the sacred weapons. He had relatives in Inaba, and they had offered to host him for the year despite being unaware of his connections to the interests of the hunters and their supernatural prey.

Midnight. The Konishi liquor store. Yōsuke loitered in front of the place, perhaps in response to a note that Saki had left for him. She had not emerged, no doubt because she expected Chie – and Yū, since hunters hit the streets in pairs in times of high alert – to turn up. The lights in the store turned off, and the entire area acquired a heavy silence. Chie felt her muscles tense as she gripped her polearm, and she envied the ice-like calm that Yū had on his face. Her first encounter. Her first Undead. All of her lessons led up to this moment, and –

– the storefront exploded in a blossom of flames, throwing a surprised Yōsuke to the ground and sending him rolling across the street. Chie blinked once in disbelief before looking down at her feet to see him lying there, unconscious. Yū turned to her and started mouthing a question, only to be interrupted by a second explosion as two figures leaped from the remains of the store. Chie recognized the first as Saki, trailing smoke, her face – eyes glowing a cold yellow – almost unrecognizable beneath a layer of ash. And the second figure seemed to be –

Chie blinked again. Yukiko? Yukiko Amagi? The only person she considered a real friend at her high school? She had the long, black hair, but ... _this_ Yukiko, draped in a red dress of many layers, radiated a purifying fire, and her eyes seemed to contain more of it. In one hand, she carried a crimson fan, and each swipe of it sent another wave of flame into the air before her, driving the Undead Saki back. Chie had the same knowledge of sorcery that all rookie hunters had, but, in all her life, she had never seen it used so easily, and on such a scale.

"Protect Yōsuke," she said to Yū as she dropped into a familiar stance, "and get him away from here. There's no need for both of us to risk our lives." He nodded once and disappeared, carrying Yōsuke as handily as if he had been carrying nothing at all – a good partner, already making snap decisions. That left her alone to face both Saki and the empowered Yukiko, but ... Yukiko could not be her enemy, not if Chie got her attention and got her to realize that she had help against a foe they had in common. They could defeat Saki _together_.

"Saki Konishi," she called, her polearm acquiring the blue-white radiance of her soul as she allowed its magic to access the depths of her heart and take strength from there, "this is the hour of your death. Tonight, you are the prey, not the predator." The ancient incantation gave her courage, and she advanced, attempting to put Saki – her face registered no panic, only the blood-red darkness of the rage that all the Undead seemed to feel – between her and Yukiko, still waving her fan, still surrounded by expanding rings of purifying fire.

Saki responded, her voice losing any human quality and becoming the hiss of the grave, "This is only the hour of your vanity, child of Satonaka. Did you think I asked you here to kill me?" She crossed the distance between them in a flash, choosing Chie for her target instead of Yukiko. "This isn't a normal town, this Inaba. Here, every fifty years, the fog –" She lunged, her fingers stretching, becoming talons, their nails long and impossibly sharp. Chie reacted so quickly that Saki did not have a chance to finish her sentence before dying.

She had been taught what to expect, but all of the teachings in the world did not prepare her for the reality of the decapitated Saki Konishi collapsing to the ground, blood spraying from her neck as her head rolled for a short distance before coming to a stop, a look of hate and disdain captured on her face, her eyes retaining a little of their unnatural glow. Chie felt her heart racing, felt dizziness claw at her balance. She realized she had to plunge her blade through the heart of the corpse, perform the correct rite to purify it, and then –

A blast of heat forced her backwards, and she had to shield her eyes, though she could already tell that Yukiko had turned her flames upon the Undead, not only purifying the body, but destroying it as if it had never existed, red fire turning white as it consumed the unholy flesh. Chie realized that Yukiko could have done it at any time, but, despite having become a vessel of unimaginable power, she had held back, had not risked the safety of her friend. She retained her reason, then. Or did she? Chie dared to remove her forearm from her eyes, to look again.

A voice – female, possessed of a beauty and melody that made Chie felt like it could move the Earth all around her – spoke through Yukiko, then, saying, "The Goddess of the Dead stirs, hunter. You, and others like you, will be needed in the days to come. Every fifty years, the fog rises. Every fifty years –" But the voice cut off, and the radiance receded, leaving the street in darkness again, leaving Yukiko as none other than herself, eyes rolling back in her head as she collapsed ... into the arms of Chie, who had already run forward to catch her.

"We've always been there," Chie said, hoping that the entity could hear her voice, "and we'll always _be_ there." But, as adrenaline started to drain from her body, she realized that she had more questions than answers. One of her senpai had been the Undead, and a person she had come to know as her friend had become the vessel of ... who? A spirit? Nothing like that had been seen for as long as the Council had existed. And that being had spoken of a Goddess of the Dead – more than a match for two novices like Chie Satonaka and Yū Narukami.

Two novices with a full-powered fire Goddess of their own, on the other hand ....

**END**.


End file.
